"Well, there's a chance for you, Lollie. Your passage is booked and all that sort of thing—have you sufficient money?"
"I've plenty of money," she said.
"Fine!" He dropped his hand lightly on her shoulder. "There's a big, big chance for you, my girl."
"And for you?" she asked.
He laughed.
"There is no chance for me at all," he said simply. "They'll take me and they'll take Pinto and last of all they'll take the colonel. It is written," he added philosophically. "Why—why, what is the matter?"
She stood stock-still and was holding on to his arm with both hands.
"You mustn't say that, you mustn't say that!" she said brokenly. "It isn't finished for you, Jack. There's a chance to get out, and the colonel has told you there's a chance. He meant it. He knows much more than we do. If you've got murder on your soul, or something worse; if you feel that you're altogether so bad that there isn't a chance for you, that there's no goodness in your life which can be expanded, why, just wait and take what's coming. But for God's sake know your mind, and if you feel that in another land, with—with someone who loves you by your side——"
Her voice broke.
"Why, Lollie," he said very gently. "You don't mean——?"